17 December 2007 6:11 PM

I shall not be posting on this site next week, because it will be the Feast of the Nativity, so I thought I would leave a small Christmas thought. No, I'm not planning to try my hand at theology, or a sermon. I recently took advantage of the new ultra-fast Eurostar to go to Belgium, that interesting country (all counties dismissed as 'boring' are fascinating - especially Belgium, Canada and Switzerland). I was mainly in Ghent, which is like picturesque Bruges, but has ( as Bruges doesn't) has a breathtaking railway station and superb trams, but so far without the shuffling throngs of endlessly shopping tourists, and specially beautiful in the much-maligned winter light. The Ghent city fathers are working hard to get some of the Bruges trade, so this peace may not last long.

And (since Eurostar tickets to Brussels allow you to travel anywhere in Belgium for no extra charge), and Ghent is now closer to London, by train, than Manchester or Sheffield, I urge any of you living in the South East of England to go to Ghent and view Jan van Eyck's astonishing Ghent Altarpiece, preferably as close to Christmas as you can manage it. It is the most astonishing piece of religious art I have ever seen, as well as being a masterpiece in any category. It even beats the terrifying Last Judgement in Beaune, by Rogier van der Weyden, where the damned have startling 21st-century faces, and Matthias Gruenewald's Issenheim altarpiece at Colmar in Alsace. These overpowering, dreamlike works of art are amazingly easy to visit using the Continent's marvellous railway network. All of them are in lovely places, crammed with history and architecture and well-equipped with places to stay and eat. Yet we tend to ignore them in favour of the more distant and (supposedly) more exotic treasures of Angkor Wat or the Terracotta Army. Personally I think that Durham Cathedral beats most sights in the world for sheer majesty and surprise, inside and out.

But back to Ghent (whose Flemish inhabitants call it Gent, and which is the 'Gaunt' that John of Gaunt was born in) Amongst other things, the picture will dispel any idea you may have that, by being modern, we are in all ways superior to our forebears, who supposedly lived, grunting and violent, among dung heaps and in hovels, unlettered and crude. Did they? I sometimes wonder if we defame the past to make the present more bearable. Van Eyck's skill is astonishing (take binoculars if you want to see the details properly, because otherwise you will find out later how many things you missed). The glory of his colours, the depth of the landscapes, would simply be beyond anyone now. The realism of his Adam and Eve makes a nonsense of the belief that painters of this era were inhibited or stylised. One of the panels was stolen mysteriously in 1934 and is still unrecovered. The replacement, though reverent and skilled, is quite obviously not the work of a true master. The subject is a dreamlike depiction of the adoration of the Lamb of God, in a celestial landscape mysteriously lit, but is crammed with myth, history and iconography that can still be read like a book. Its outer doors (displayed behind the main painting) are a depiction of the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation, in which the Archangel fills the room with his presence and power, and also casts a shadow. Through the windows, as the world-transforming moment takes place, can be seen the streets of 15th-century Ghent in winter sunshine. Happy Christmas.